Adventures Among Books eBook

Now, Dr. John Brown was at the opposite pole of feeling.
He had no mawkish toleration of things and people
intolerable, but he preferred not to turn his mind
that way. His thoughts were with the good, the
wise, the modest, the learned, the brave of times
past, and he was eager to catch a reflection of their
qualities in the characters of the living, of all
with whom he came into contact. He was, for example,
almost optimistic in his estimate of the work of young
people in art or literature. From everything
that was beautiful or good, from a summer day by the
Tweed, or from the eyes of a child, or from the humorous
saying of a friend, or from treasured memories of old
Scotch worthies, from recollections of his own childhood,
from experience of the stoical heroism of the poor,
he seemed to extract matter for pleasant thoughts of
men and the world, and nourishment for his own great
and gentle nature. I have never known any man
to whom other men seemed so dear—­men dead,
and men living. He gave his genius to knowing
them, and to making them better known, and his unselfishness
thus became not only a great personal virtue, but
a great literary charm. When you met him, he
had some “good story” or some story of
goodness to tell—­for both came alike to
him, and his humour was as unfailing as his kindness.
There was in his face a singular charm, blended,
as it were, of the expressions of mirth and of patience.
Being most sensitive to pain, as well as to pleasure,
he was an exception to that rule of Rochefoucauld’s—­“nous
avons tous assez de force pour supporter les maux
d’autrui.” {2}

He did not bear easily the misfortunes of others,
and the evils of his own lot were heavy enough.
They saddened him; but neither illness, nor his poignant
anxiety for others, could sour a nature so unselfish.
He appeared not to have lost that anodyne and consolation
of religious hope, which had been the strength of
his forefathers, and was his best inheritance from
a remarkable race of Scotsmen. Wherever he came,
he was welcome; people felt glad when they had encountered
him in the streets—­the streets of Edinburgh,
where almost every one knows every one by sight—­and
he was at least as joyously received by the children
and the dogs as by the grown-up people of every family.
A friend has kindly shown me a letter in which it
is told how Dr. Brown’s love of dogs, his interest
in a half-blind old Dandy which was attached to him,
was evinced in the very last hours of his life.
But enough has been said, in general terms, about
the character of “the beloved physician,”
as Dr. Brown was called in Edinburgh, and a brief
account may be given, in some detail, of his life
and ways.